IncGamers has a confirmation of indications that StarCraft II players will not be able to play against gamers in other regions, when the RTS sequel is released this summer. "It'll be structured very similarly to World of Warcraft, where you've got the European region and players matched against the other players within their region," Blizzard's Frank Pearce told them. Pearce did explain it should be possible to work around this: "if you're a European player and you've got friends that are in another region that you want to be able to connect with, we definitely want to support that," although "it might mean that you have to access it through the US client." There's also an article on this on GXBlog, where Mark Yu suggests that two versions of the game may be required to play between North America and Asia: "Yes, when it releases on day one, if you want to connect with your friends in the US, get the US box or if you want to play with Koreans, then get the Korean box. However if you want to get the best experience out of your game here in South East Asia, you should get the local boxset. The latency, the community, those are the things are going to really define the experience, and you don't want to miss out on that."

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on May 27, 2010, 13:49:Apparently you are correct, Blizzard have always had higher(than other pc games) prices, at least as suggested retail. However I don't really see many people arguing the actual game is SHORTER, just that in order to get the 'complete' game you are going to end up spending somewhere around $180, and it will be at least 2-3 years later before you have the entire thing, according to Blizzard.

Also there really doesn't seem to be any debate over 29.99 or whatever the expansions were for SC1 and War3 vs 59.99 for each SC2 expansion, potential single player campaign game length aside. The multiplayer is the same client you get with the first game.

This site cracks me up, I wonder if any of the people arguing with me are actually going to even buy SC2 in the first place. I'm sure most of you will PLAY it, but...

Your ignorance is astounding.

Blizzard has already confirmed that the additional campaigns will be charged at expansion price, not the full price that Wings of Liberty is being charged for. Since..y'know, they're *expansions* this is kinda obvious. Did you complain about Blizzard being greedy for releasing Brood War for $29.99 back in the day, too? After all, they charged you more and made you wait to get the COMPLETE game!

Wings of Liberty, for that matter, is also easily found at ~$40-$50 pre-order if you know where to look. Like mine, which I snagged for $45. No, Amazon.com and Gamestop are not the only places to order games from. This price will likely be more widely available once it's released digitally as well, since retailers love to undercut.

The reason for the region division is A.) lag (no, 200ms is not very fun to play) and B.) integration with the World of Warcraft servers, which are already like this, for cross-game communication.

And yes, let's throw in accusations of most of us being pirates after multiple people have proven you wrong.

And, by the way? Most mods/maps are going to be free. They'll be allowing a micro-transaction marketplace as an option due to the power of the map editor and as a way to reward modders for supporting their game. It'll be a completely optional thing, kind of like NWN's premium modules worked.

Seriously, just stop. I wish there was LAN too, but you're grossly uninformed on the rest.